Experimenting with First Person Point of View I’ve noticed lately how many best-sellers are written in 1st person point of view–especially young adult novels. When a story is written in 1st person, the author writes as if they are the main character, telling the story in their own words. (As opposed to 3rd person, where […]
Writing Lesson 2.9 – 10 Common Mistakes Writers Make
October 22, 2010 By 1 Comment
After teaching writing and critiquing many chapters for the past several years, I’ve come up with a list of the common mistakes I see in manuscripts.
Writing Lesson 35 – Be an Invisible Author
May 7, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Author Intrusion I’d like to introduce you to a term, if you aren’t familiar with it already, called “author intrusion”. You have author intrusion when you’re reading a story and all of a sudden something is said in a way that pulls you out of the “zone” your imagination is in. It might be a […]
Writing Lesson 32 – Let Me Show You How to Show
April 16, 2010 By 1 Comment
“Showing vs. Telling” We’ve written much about this concept of using vivid action, description, and dialogue to show what’s happening in a story rather than simply telling readers about what happens. It would be fitting, perhaps, to “show” you an example. Below is the first paragraph of a scene in my work in progress (wip), […]
Writing Lesson 20 – Get Inside Their Heads
January 22, 2010 By Leave a Comment
Point of View Makes All the Difference When you and your sibling have a disagreement and tell your stories to a parent, you learn firsthand the difference someone’s point-of-view can have on the way he or she sees the same basic set of events. Your brother’s version of how grandma’s prized antique vase got broken […]
